“The reason I don’t go home? I don’t go home because then I’m the Daphne who was an epic fuckup and things justhappenthat aren’t supposed to happen because I have the worst timing ever, and something happened again, butI am okay, and I’ll be home…sometime…and I just didn’t want you to worry.”
“There is nothing about this conversation that isn’t making me worry.”
“Remember when I moved in with you? When you had to teach me to drive and how to do laundry and grocery shop on a budget?”
“Yes,” Bea says while I file away my own questions for later about how she taught Daphne to drive.
“I have to do that for someone else right now.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Daphne—”
“Bea. Listen. I love you more than I love anyone else on this planet. You saved my life, and I would literally die for you, but I cannot tell you who I’m with. It’s—it’s sensitive, and it’s just easier if you don’t know, okay? But I’m okay. I’m on a little unplanned road trip. My phone is, um, temporarily out of commission, so I got this burner phone. I’m going to have it off a lot, but if youneedneed me, you can call me on this number or my other cell. I’m…working on getting it…working again.”
“What about your job?”
“I’m calling in sick for the week. If Margot calls—if Margot calls, just tell her I got twitchy and had to go camping off-grid, and that I’ll call her back in a week or two, okay?”
“Daphne—”
“Did you make up with Simon?”
“Yes, but?—”
“For real?”
“He’s right here. Want to say hi?”
“No, I need to go. He’s going to notice that I’m taking longer than I should in the bathroom.”
“He? Who’she?”
“Bea, I really have to go. But quick—are you happy?”
“Other than my best friend disappearing with an unnamedheand being really cryptic about it? Yes. Very happy.”
“I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“Madame Petty told me you wouldn’t come home one day,” Bea blurts.
“Fuck Madame Petty. I’m coming home, and then I’ll tell you everything. I’ll call you every other day or so. So you know I’m still alive. Gotta dash, Bea. I love you.”
“Daphne—dammit.”
Bea throws her phone down and stares at it in the grass.
“She hung up?” I ask.
“Did you hear that?”
“Every word. Has she…” I’m not certain how to finish.
“Done something like this before?”
“I was trying to find a more polite way to word that question.”
